


I'll Be the Grapes Fermented

by meditationsinemergencies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Pining, Rare Pairings, She's Actually Molly Prewett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23021179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meditationsinemergencies/pseuds/meditationsinemergencies
Summary: Molly Prewett witnesses a disastrous date in her cozy bakery and befriends Remus Lupin the intelligent but broke, handsome but disheveled, and sweet but sullen doctoral candidate at the local university.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Molly Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	I'll Be the Grapes Fermented

**Author's Note:**

> This is, I think, an eventual longer piece.  
> [KrumPuffer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrumPuffer/profile)  
> and I were chatting, and I was complaining about being in a writing funk, and she, in all her genius, challenged us both to write 2k on a pairing we'd never written before. Out came Muggle Remus and Molly. I am very intrigued by these two, and I am sure they have much longer story coming. 
> 
> Also, go check out KrumPuffer's work because she is a dreamboat of a writer. 
> 
> Also, also, this is unbeta'd.
> 
> Also, also, also, the title is from "Brand New Colony" by The Postal Service.

"'m so sorry, Remus. I’m supposed to be here taking care of you. I know you have to be hungry. I know you haven’t eaten. Let me get up off of this bloody couch and…” Molly Prewett wobbled as she propped up on her elbow on the old beaten-to-hell couch, felt her head sway, and plopped back against the throw pillows. Remus Lupin reached over and rested his hand against Molly’s forehead, tendrils of her red hair were plastered to her temple. Her eyes fluttered shut and she let out a low, slow breath, as she tried to steady that wobbly feeling. His hand was barely touching her forehead and he could feel the heat radiating off of her, “Gods, Molly! I can feed myself. I'll just fry an egg on your forehead. That’s how high your fever is right now.” He chuckled softly as she opened her eyes and rolled them, “I’m fine, Remus. And we both know you wouldn't know where to even begin with frying an egg." He pretended to look shocked at her comment, "I assume, Molly, that I would begin by cracking an egg." She peered at him, "Smart arse." Remus crouched down beside her on his couch and grinned at her. **_  
_**

She’d come to visit him for a few days. Well, she’d come to take care of him for a few days. He was often quite neglectful when it came to taking care of himself, especially when he was busy. He was on the precipice of presenting his dissertation: _The Relational Significance Between Greek Mythology’s Lycaon, Nordic Folklore, and Their Impact on Modern Literature,_ which meant he was at the peak of not taking care of himself. 

Molly owned and ran a bakery in the next town over, and, due to it’s growing popularity, she rarely got a day off, and so it had been a while since they had seen one another. They spoke often, however, so Molly knew that Remus was probably living off of peanut butter sandwiches, ramen, and instant coffee. 

She left her little shop, _The Burrow,_ in the capable hands of Alice and Frank Longbottom, for three full days. Her shop was everything to her, but she knew how important the next few days were to Remus, and how, even if he didn’t realize it, he needed a warm meal; he needed someone to tell him to shower; he needed someone to force him to stop working. Remus was frankly shit at taking care of himself, and Molly just so happened to be quite good at it. She had been from the moment they’d met four years ago. 

She had noticed him almost immediately when he walked into the shop; he was tall and muscular, but he was also noticeably tired and disheveled for someone who was as young as he was. He looked, quite honestly, like he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing there. Come to find out, he was there on a date. He sat down at a small table with a woman who had been there for half an hour already. To Molly’s surprise, but not Remus’, his date left him there about forty-five minutes into their evening. She didn’t just leave him, she stormed off loudly and abruptly — it was quite a scene in her cozy shop. 

Molly looked over from the pastry case, where she was adding a few more salted caramel brownies, and she saw how his face looked, not just tired but also sullen. She wasn’t sure what had just transpired in her shop, but she was certain that this man hadn’t done anything cruel to the woman who had just left; she had no reason for this certainty other than that it was a gut-feeling. She slid one of the brownies onto a plate, glanced at him, noted that he didn’t have anything to drink, despite having been in a coffee shop for forty-five minutes, poured him a tall glass of milk, and walked over to his table. She set the plate and the glass down, “This is on the house.” He glanced up at her, as she spoke and he smiled wearily, “Thank you?” 

Molly sat down in the chair across from him. Remus felt an immediate sense of warmth when she sat down; she had thick, auburn-red hair and although she was on the shorter-side she was voluptuous in a way that was not only incredibly attractive but comforting. Remus immediately wanted to know what it would feel like to be hugged by her. She nudged the brownie towards him. “Eat it. It’ll make you feel better.” He raised an eyebrow and picked up the brownie, before taking a bite he replied, “How do you know I need to feel better?” She shrugged as she got up from the chair, “Just a hunch.” 

Remus tried to find a good time to thank the woman, he hadn’t even caught her name, but after she’d left his table she was busy talking to this person or that person or making more coffee or grabbing things from the kitchen. He’d never been to this bakery before, he’d never even heard of it, but this didn’t surprise him. He didn’t get out much, that was part of the reason his date, Violet, had left him there. They had met in a class, and she was pretty and liked him, but he didn’t want to go out enough; he wasn’t fun enough, he wasn’t willing to commit to a serious relationship and so on and so forth. He was far more invested in his studies, and, frankly, he just preferred to be alone. It hadn’t been anything against her personally, but Violet had taken it that way.

As the evening was winding down, the red-headed woman seemed to just get busier. He was certain, now, that she must be the owner of this place, and he was also quite sure that he needed another one of those brownies. It had been the best thing he’d eaten in a long time. 

Standing at the register, he got out his wallet and waited for her to come over to him. She walked up behind him and rested her hand on his forearm, “I told you it was on the house.” She rounded the counter and stood across from him. “Yes, but...I’d like another. It was outstanding. Ridiculously good.” She smiled warmly, “And, do you feel better?” He laughed softly looking down at the tattered leather wallet in his hands, “Yes. A bit. Thank you.” Her smile grew, “Good.” 

After that, Remus made it a point to return to her bakery weekly. Before long, they’d become quite good friends and had remained so ever since. Now, she was here to babysit him, essentially. He knew he wasn’t very good at relaxing, or eating healthy, or sleeping, or doing anything other than whatever it was he working on. When Molly came over, she wasn’t intrusive or invasive. She’d come over and make dinner; he’d moon over it; she’d settle onto his couch and knit or read or fiddle in her recipe book while he worked on whatever it was he was working on. Occasionally, she’d force him to take a break: ask him to help her cook, make him watch a movie with her, and, occasionally, she’d set him up on a date with one of the young women, who were closer to Remus’ age, that worked or frequented her bakery. Molly and Remus’ relationship had always been just a friendship; she was, after all, eleven years older than him. This was the reason Molly gave to friends when they inquired why she never dated Remus or, really, why she’d never shagged him — he was the looker. Neither party had ever even indicated that they were interested in anything more than their friendship, and so they orbited around each other calmly and pleasantly. 

Molly was constantly bothered by the fact that Remus didn’t have a significant other; Remus claimed that he just didn’t have the time and once admitted that he was wary of commitment and wary of the irrationality that was love. 

Over their friendship, Molly had dated two men; she had been in a relationship when they met, that one ended about half a year into their friendship. She had finally broken up with Lucius when she’d simply grown tired of him running around on her and she’d grown tired of having to defend her bakery to him — Lucius believed the bakery was making her fat and that it was a useless business venture that would inevitably fail. This infuriated Remus when he’d heard, and he never had wanted to fight someone more in his life. The other relationship began not long after she’d left Lucius, and it ended two and a half years later, due to the fact that Molly wasn’t ready to settle down, while she eventually wanted to marry and have children, she hadn’t wanted to marry and have seven or so babies so soon. Since then Molly had remained single, but she still casually dated. Men asked her out regularly: She was beautiful, funny, charming, warm, and she was a hell of a cook. 

Remus eyed her on his couch, a couch they’d sat on a number of times over the past four years, and he smiled to himself. Not once, since he’d known her, had he been given the opportunity to take care of her. She believed that he needed her this weekend, that he would be a complete wreck as he prepared to present his dissertation, but he wasn’t; he felt calm and at ease knowing that soon year’s worth of work would be over. Much of his success, he thought, was due to their friendship: her constant encouragement, as well as her need to ensure he was properly fed. Remus knew, when he first met her, that he could easily fall in love with someone like her, and, honestly, he thought, who couldn’t? It wasn’t long after this realization that he did fall in love with her, but Remus was always very good at separating his feelings from his current reality, and he had managed to compartmentalize all romantic notions of how he felt about Molly. 

Crouching next to her, he let his fingertips graze her forehead. She jerked her head away from his touch, not really considering the tenderness in it, “Stop it. You’ll get sick, too. You cannot get sick.” She sat up as quickly as she could in her current state as an idea came to her, “Oh! I know. You need to stay at my house. Take my keys. There’s plenty of food in the cupboards, I’m sure you can figure out something to throw together. I will not let you stay here and get sick, Remus.” He shook his head with his furrowed brow, “Absolutely not. Your house is too nice for me to stay in it. Plus, _you_ won’t be at your house. I want to stay here with you, even if you are poorly and germ-infested.” She pulled a blanket over her head and groaned, “You are an absolute idiot, but fine.” Remus got up and sat on the other end of the couch, she pulled her legs up into herself as he sat. He took his hands, which were cool and felt great against her hot skin, and tugged her legs onto his lap to rest. She peeked over the blanket at him for a moment, their eyes met, and she went back to hiding under the blanket, where she accidentally fell asleep. 

Remus sat quietly on the couch with her feet and legs in his lap, after a while he let a hand rest on her calve absent-mindedly while he flipped through the television; he settled on something on the SyFy network and contentedly watched it while Molly slept. She shifted in her sleep and the blanket fell away from her face. He tried not to stare at her while she slept, her skin was fair and soft and creamy, the fever made her cheeks a soft pink; her lips were parted, they were plump and a beautiful shade of peach. Remus felt a familiar stir of longing in his gut, a feeling that was becoming more and more prevalent as time passed. 

When he first met Molly she had a boyfriend and his feelings for her were pointless, when she and Lucius had broken up, he thought it best to give her time, but then she ended up dating Arthur for quite some time, and once they broke up, she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in a serious relationship, and Remus knew that what he wanted with Molly was something serious, not just a casual thing. But as time passed, Remus was coming to understand that he could only suppress his feelings for her for so long. He knew that he’d have to tell her soon, and he’d planned on telling her after he’d presented his dissertation, but now that she was here on his couch sleeping and sick with her feet in his lap, in need of him for once, he wasn’t sure he’d make it through the night without telling her how he loved her and how much so. 


End file.
